my cookies bring all the girls to the yard
by the'nvisiblegirl
Summary: "You've been in every night for the better part of the past week and always order the exact same thing." Well, shit. Sara crossed her arms in front of her and because, as everyone knew, a strong offense was the best defense, said, "Judgmental much, Cookie Monster?" OR The college/cookie shop AU nobody asked for.


_A/N: Right, so. I finally watched Legends of Tomorrow (and by "watched" I mean "binged the entire thing within less than a week") and it has ruined my damn life because now I am completely and utterly obsessed with Avalance and I cannot stop. It's a problem, honestly. But they're just so [insert that gif of Ava trying not to lose it when interacting with John Constantine and his foot]._

_A few notes:_

_1\. I have not written anything (other than academic papers) in 3 years so... this might be garbage. But I just had this urge to write about these two because it has been absolute ages since two characters have resonated with me on such a level._

_2\. I know that the whole point of Insomnia Cookies is that they deliver the cookies to you but I thought it was better narratively if Sara physically goes to the store (and at the same time didn't want to let that insomnia pun go), so let's just pretend Insomnia doesn't deliver, ok? (Also they box your cookies and don't bag them but this is an AU anyway so whatever.)_

_3\. Follow me on tumblr (gayneralantiope) for live updates on how my obsession with Avalance is quickly spiraling out of control._

_Enjoy, punks!_

Sara Lance let her head fall onto the table before her in defeat, letting out a long-suffering sigh. Finals were absolutely killing her this semester and the only thing that was keeping her going was a mixture of sugar, Red Bull, and anxiety. How she was still alive she didn't quite know.

Her one saving grace in this unfortunate situation was Insomnia Cookies—a five minute walk away from both her dorm and the library, right in the middle of campus—which had fueled her through so many all-nighters and late night study sessions in the past few days that they might as well be sponsoring her and her desperate efforts to not fail her degree at this point. And yes, she might be risking diabetes by getting cookies every night, but she was an adult who could make adult decisions—like having cookies as a midnight snack on the regular. Plus, besides the fact that finals season was a time where normal rules didn't apply, it wasn't like anyone was keeping score, anyway. Or so Sara thought until she walked into Insomnia Cookies in the middle of another all-nighter from hell and was greeted with: "One Chocolate Chunk, one Peanut Butter Chip, and two Double Choc Mint, right?"

The girl behind the counter gave her a smirk and Sara decided then and there that she did not like her. She seemed like the type of person that would snitch on you for being on your phone in class or for not doing exactly fifty percent of the group project. Also, she'd probably voted Republican. What an asshole.

"How do you...?" Sara started, too stunned (and sleep-deprived) to think of anything actually witty to reply.

It was then, upon having a closer look at the blonde in front of her, that she realized that she had, in fact, been served by her several times before in recent days, always at a time when any reasonable person would be fast asleep in their bed.

She was pretty. Tall, blonde, nice arms. Definitely Sara's type (not that it mattered). Quite frankly, Sara was surprised she _hadn't_ noticed her sooner; usually she fell head over heels for every cute girl she laid eyes on because she was a walking bi disaster. However, the girl being reasonably attractive still did not change the fact that Sara didn't like her.

And she was immediately proven right in her instinctive dislike of the blonde because the girl continued with her 'holier than thou' act: "You've been in every night for the better part of the past week and always order the exact same thing."

Well, shit. Sara crossed her arms in front of her and because, as everyone knew, a strong offense was the best defense, said, "Judgmental much, Cookie Monster?"

The girl's smile faltered slightly, but there was a spark in her eye, almost as if she was welcoming Sara's challenge. She folded her arms to mirror the blonde and, for a moment, they just stood there, eyeing each other with barely disguised contempt.

"I wasn't being judgmental. Just stating facts." She shrugged and Sara was speechless, which did not happen often. Usually she always had a snarky comeback for absolutely everything. Somehow, though, this girl had gotten under her skin to a point where she was incapable of stringing together coherent sentences. So she just stood there, dumbly staring at the blonde.

Sensing that she'd won this round, she asked sweetly, "I'm right, though. Right?"

Still too surprised to think of something to say that was actually worthwhile, Sara just shrugged, mumbling "whatever" under her breath, which earned her another self-satisfied smirk from the girl behind the counter who was now bagging up Sara's cookies.

"There you go. I'll see you tomorrow?" She held out the cookies almost like a peace offering, giving Sara a smile that seemed genuine rather than purely intent of pissing her off as before.

"Maybe," Sara muttered before grabbing the paper bag from her outstretched hand and turning to leave without another word.

She purposefully did not return the next night and got a Snickers from one of the library vending machines instead, which she regretted as soon as she took the first bite. And it wasn't only the cookies she was missing, it was the cocky, annoying, beautiful girl selling them as well, she hated to admit. True, they'd only talked once—and most of that had been them antagonizing each other—but for some reason Sara couldn't get her out of her damn head (to the point where she'd walked into the wrong room earlier that day and only realized halfway through the class on medieval German pottery). She did not understand how the blonde had been able to get under her skin like no one else before, and was still replaying their conversation in her mind two days after it had first happened instead of focusing on what she should actually be doing.

She had another look at the same page of her text book she'd been trying—and failing—to read for the past 30 minutes while her thoughts kept circling back to Insomnia girl. Hell, she didn't even know her fucking name, how was she so hung up on this girl. Especially since she didn't like her. Right? She was a self-righteous, annoying (attractive) asshole—a perfect match for Sara, really. "Fuck," she muttered as she stood up and grabbed her jacket.

The walk from the library to Insomnia was short as ever and before she knew it she could see the purple sign in front of her. Her heart was hammering in her chest to the point where she had to remind herself that there was a real possibility that the blonde wasn't even going to be there. Sara honestly didn't know what would be better; her being on shift and giving Sara shit about her cookie consumption again or her not being on shift and the inevitable (and totally unreasonable) disappointment she knew that would cause. Well, only one way to find out, Sara thought, before she took a deep breath and opened the door.

The girl's head snapped up immediately from whatever she was looking at behind the counter, and a blinding smile appeared on her face as she laid eyes on Sara, whose insides suddenly felt like a bucket of ants had been released in there. _Shit_.

"The legend returns! I thought you'd died," the girl laughed, and Sara rolled her eyes. "Haha, very funny."

The girl just laughed harder. "Oh come on, lighten up!"

Sara scowled. "How are you this cheery at—" she fished her phone out of her back pocket and pressed the button to make the display light up "—1.43AM?"

"A load of cocaine."

"_What_?"

"I'm joking."

"You're an asshole," Sara muttered, fighting the urge to roll her eyes again. This girl was truly and utterly insufferable. How could a person she barely even knew push her buttons so effectively? There was no way of telling if she wanted to shove the blonde up against the nearest wall to strangle or to kiss her. Sara froze at her own train of thought. _Kiss_ her? Definitely not. Never. Not in a million years. She despised the girl; no desire to kiss her—against a wall or otherwise—whatsoever, thank you very much.

"No, I'm Ava, actually," the other girl supplied then, successfully bringing Sara back to reality. She blinked. The name echoed in her mind like a prayer. Ava. Ava. _Ava_.

"Sara," she replied after just staring dumbly at the girl in front of her for a few moments, taking Ava's outstretched hand and shaking it. The gesture seemed awfully formal but, at the same time, the sensation of Ava's skin against hers made her entire arm feel like it was on fire.

"Nice to meet you, Sara."

"Nice to meet you, Ava."

They smiled at each other as Ava started bagging up Sara's usual without even asking, which... fair enough. She didn't exactly know why, but for some reason Sara wanted to keep talking to her now that they actually knew each other's names, get to know things about her—about Ava—so she said the first thing that came to her mind: "So who did you piss off to end up with the night shift literally every night?"

Ava laughed and the sound caused Sara's heart to stutter. "Well, I guess you could say I put the 'insomnia' in Insomnia Cookies. Might as well earn some money off of it."

"What are you? A vampire?"

One of Ava's eyebrows shot up and she leant her hip against the side of the counter to her right.

"I mean, I could ask you the same thing: what is going wrong in your life that you're in here all the time in the middle of the night?"

There was that twinkle in her eyes again, the challenge, because of course Ava wouldn't just take Sara's little jab lying down. Only at this point, Sara didn't hate that at much as she used to. In fact, it was almost… endearing?

"Finals," Sara shrugged, pretending to be exasperated by Ava's antics rather than utterly charmed.

"What's your major?"

"Criminology."

"Cool."

"Yeah."

The conversation stalled slightly after that, neither one sure what to say next. The only thing Sara _did_ know was that she wanted to keep this thing going somehow.

"Are you in college as well or...?" Sara asked eventually. From the looks of it Ava was slightly older than Sara—a couple of years, probably—so there was a possibility that she'd already graduated. Or maybe she'd never even gone to college at all. Or maybe—

"I'm doing my MBA," Ava said, sounding so casual that Sara momentarily thought she'd misheard. "You're doing an _MBA_ and have time to stand here and sell cookies every night? What are you? Some sort of superhuman?"

Ava let out a little laugh and dipped her head, bringing one hand to her neck as she looked up at Sara through her eyelashes. There was a slight blush to her cheeks. She looked... cute. Sara swallowed, lowering her eyes to the floor.

She could hear Ava bagging up her cookies and, looking back up, clearly saw her putting a third Double Chocolate Mint cookie into the bag before folding it shut and handing it over.

Turning to leave, Sara gave the other girl one last smile.

"See you around, Ava."

"See you around, Sara."

It became a daily ritual after that. Sara would come in a little before midnight, sometimes even bringing in some of her notes to study right in the store while keeping Ava company throughout her shift. During particularly quiet periods where she had no actual work to do, Ava would even quiz Sara or offer suggestions on points and phrasing for her papers. All the while, they talked, slowly but surely getting to know each other. Sara learned that Ava was originally from Fresno, that she was an only child, and that her favorite color was blue. She had a borderline obsessive fascination with serial killers and used to tap dance when she was younger.

But there were also times when they wouldn't talk at all, at least for a bit, and just each do their own thing instead, content with the knowledge that the other was there. It was nice. Easy. And even though it had been less than a week since their very first actual conversation Sara had gotten used to spending time with Ava. Hell, she looked forward to it from the moment she woke up and sometimes had to physically stop herself from making an appearance at Insomnia right at the beginning of Ava's shifts and spend the entirety of the next seven hours at the store with her.

Still though, if she went out of her way to go by the Business School building on her walk to the library more often than not then that was because she needed to get her steps in, not because she was hoping to see Ava. Absolutely, definitely not. (Or that was what she told herself.) They were friends. Casual acquaintances. Practically complete strangers. The fact that Sara thought of the blonde every time she as much as saw someone with blond hair did not change anything about that.

She did end up seeing Ava on campus eventually, however not where she'd expected. It was early on a Wednesday afternoon and she had decided to go to the gym before it got busy because all those cookies were slowly but surely leaving their mark on her body, when, suddenly, there she was on one of the treadmills. Her hair was in a loose ponytail, bobbing back and forth behind her head with every stride, and she was wearing a skintight Star City University Women's Soccer tank top that left very little to the imagination. She looked even better than she did in her uniform.

Sara could feel herself getting antsy. She wanted nothing more than to go over there and talk to Ava but before she had a chance, her self-doubts caught up with her desire to interact with the other girl. Because it wasn't like they were actual friends. Yes, they saw each other pretty much every day and could talk about all sorts for hours on end but Ava didn't really have a choice in the matter, did she? What if she didn't actually like having Sara around? If she was just being nice to her because she was a paying customer? Talking at Insomnia was one thing. But doing it out in the real world? That was a whole different ballgame.

She was just about to turn away and head to one of the rowing machines in the far corner of the gym to further consider the pros and cons of approaching and/or not approaching Ava when the decision was taken from her altogether. "Sara, hey!" she heard Ava's voice call out from behind her and she immediately froze on the spot. Right, play it cool, Lance. No need to be a dork about this.

Taking a deep breath, Sara turned to face the blonde and, as she did, caught Ava's eyes roaming over her torso—clad in a black sports bra and nothing else—and lingering on her abs longer than strictly necessary. _Interesting_.

"How are finals going?" Ava asked, a slight pink color to her cheeks. Whether it was from her run or the effect Sara's abs were having on the other girl, Sara couldn't tell. (But she desperately wanted to believe it was the latter.)

"Ugh, can we not, please," Sara groaned because she was absolutely sick of talking, hearing, or even _thinking_ about what was the absolute bane of her existence—ignorance really was bliss, in this case. Even if just for a few minutes. And, besides, there were so many other things she'd rather talk to Ava about. Ava, however, completely misunderstood what Sara was saying. Her face fell.

"Oh, ok. Sorry. I thought... I'll leave you to it, then."

She turned to leave, believing that Sara's words had been a straight up rejection, that she didn't want to talk to her outside of their little Insomnia bubble. Sara's stomach dropped.

"No, that's not what I—" she quickly assured her, grabbing Ava's biceps in order to stop her from going. She could feel strong muscles flex under her fingers and dropped her hand immediately, as if burned.

"Sorry, I'm just really stressed because my last final is tomorrow and I feel like I don't know anything."

"The psychology one?"

Sara nodded.

"Bullshit. I quizzed you on it on Monday and you were great! You'll be fine, don't worry." Ava gave her an encouraging smile, eyes bright, before glancing down at her FitBit.

"I'm really sorry but I need to get going. I've got an appointment with my applied statistics professor," she said apologetically, hand absentmindedly reaching toward Sara.

"Sure, I'll see you later."

At that, Ava's face morphed into an expression Sara had never seen on her face before; something between a wince and pure horror. "I've got the night off, actually."

Sara felt an immediate pang of disappointment, which must have been visible on her face because Ava quickly assured her with an "I'm back tomorrow, though!" before giving her one last smile and disappearing toward the locker rooms.

It had all been downhill from there that day. First she'd spilled an entire cup of scalding hot coffee over herself and then gotten a rejection email from a post-college job she'd applied for—and she didn't even have Ava's face (and cookies) to look forward to. True, she could still get the cookies if she wanted to, but then what was the point if Ava wasn't going to be there, anyway. She couldn't pinpoint exactly when it had stopped being about cookies and started being about seeing this girl she was maybe (definitely) having a massive crush on. But she didn't like to think about this little fact too much because it made things a bit too real, so she tried to concentrate on her notes instead of thinking about a certain blonde.

She was two seconds away from just dropping out of college altogether because there was no way she was going to pass this test, when she felt more than saw someone appear in front of her. She looked up and there was Ava, a brown paper bag clutched in front of her chest. At first Sara thought she'd actually managed to fall asleep in the middle of the goddamn library and was having a sugar withdrawal-induced dream, but then Ava came closer, giving her a lopsided smile, and said, "cookies?" sounding somehow both hopeful and terrified at the same time.

For a moment Sara didn't know what to say as her brain tried to catch up with what was happening right in front of her. How had Ava found her? Why was she even here? And on her one night off no less?

"Wha—what are you doing here?" Sara finally managed to get out. For all her usual air of confidence and bravado, she was deeply insecure when it came to any form of genuine human connection, always doubting that people actually liked her, actually wanted to spend time with her. That's why she stuck to one night stands and no strings attached; feelings—actual, real feelings—scared the absolute shit out of her. And she had slowly but surely come to realize that she had actual, real feelings for Ava, despite all the time she had spent trying to deny them.

"I had a hunch that you might want some cookies," Ava explained with a smirk on her lips, waving the paper bag in her hands before dropping it onto the table right in front of Sara.

"Honestly, I was missing you more than the cookies," Sara blurted out before her brain had a chance to catch up with her mouth. Fuck. Way to go not being too obvious about your crush, Lance. Acknowledging that you had feelings for someone was one thing, actually acting on them, though? That was an entirely different beast.

Ava, for her part, let out a little laugh before biting her bottom lip, looking straight into Sara's eyes.

"Liar."

Her voice was softer than usual; almost breathless. The sound of it made Sara's heart flutter and—probably thanks to the consequent lack of oxygen in her body—her brain once again failed her.

"It's true. You're an asshole, but you're my asshole."

And just like that it was Sara's turn to blush while internally cursing her absolute lack of both filter and common sense. She needed to snap the fuck out of it because her crush was getting painfully obvious and she wasn't ready to get shot down by a cute girl the night before her most important final.

So, instead, she did the one thing she was good at in any kind of situation where feelings and inter-personal relationships were concerned: pushing people away in order to avoid getting hurt. To avoid even the possibility that someone could come too close.

"Thanks for the cookies but I'm super busy with—" Sara gestured vaguely at the mountain of texts books and notes on the table without looking at Ava, "— this."

She didn't see the other girl's reaction but could almost physically feel her shift in demeanor.

"Of course. Good luck for tomorrow," she said, sounding more formal than she ever had before.

And then Ava was gone.

Sara let her head fall into her hands, a long-suffering sigh leaving her lips, before her eyes landed on the bag of cookies in front of her. Might as well eat her feelings after this absolute train wreck of a conversation. Looked like she had to find a new place to get her nightly sugar hit from. Maybe she should switch to frozen yogurt?

To her surprise, the first thing her fingers came in contact with when reaching into the bag wasn't a cookie, though, but a piece of paper. Maybe Ava was finally charging her for all the cookies she had snuck her for free for the past week and a half. However, instead of a bill, she found a note saying, "Good luck with your final final, you'll be great!"

Sara smiled, gently stroking her thumb over the words. Knowing that Ava believed in her and her abilities made her heart swell and she started absentmindedly turning the paper around in her hands. She almost choked on her own spit when she saw what Ava had put on the other side:

"If you fancy something a little more substantial than cookies one day—call me!"

What Sara could only assume was her phone number was written underneath.

Fuck. Fucking fuckety _fuck_! She had gotten it all wrong. What the hell was she doing trying to push Ava away. She liked the blonde._ Like_ liked her. A lot. And, evidently, Ava did, too.

Before her brain even knew what her body was doing she was out of her chair and halfway down the stairs, taking two steps at a time, and almost knocking out some poor guy carrying a stack of books in the hallway. When she finally got out of the building she could just about make out Ava's silhouette in the distance and set off running once more.

"Ava! Wait!" she shouted like some hopeless guy in one of those 90s romcoms, finally catching up with the blonde. Despite all her regular workouts she was breathing hard from her impromptu run—or maybe it was from how hard her heart was hammering in her chest at the thought of losing Ava.

Sara looked at the woman in front of her. She was beautiful with her hair slightly tousled, her bright eyes staring intently at Sara, waiting for her next move. There were a few semi-dried tears visible on Ava's cheeks and, immediately, Sara felt a pang of guilt. She'd done this; had made Ava cry.

She needed to touch her, to feel her skin under her fingers and wipe away her tears, so she reached out and gently put her right hand on Ava's cheek. For a moment she just gazed at the blonde, hand gently cupping her face. Ava looked somewhere between absolutely terrified and hopeful but she did not break their skin contact, which Sara took as permission to finally close the gap between them as she pressed her lips to Ava's.

For a second it was just that; lips pressed to lips. But then Sara opened her mouth and nipped at Ava's bottom lip, which resulted in a moan from the taller woman. Encouraged by this, Sara pressed on, deepening the kiss and pulling Ava flush to herself.

When they eventually broke apart, Ava leant her forehead against Sara's and let out a shaky little laugh.

"I can't believe I've got a crush on someone who called me 'Cookie Monster' when we first met."

Sara laughed. "Aw, babe. You have a crush on me. How embarrassing."

"Oh shut up," Ava replied, lightly shoving Sara's shoulder before going in for another kiss.


End file.
